After a marathon stage, cut short by about 100km at the end for safety reasons and neutralised in the middle, creating a two part stage, Robby Gordon has put his HST Gordini on the final step of the podium. His first visit there in the 2014 Dakar.

At the first waypoint, just 46km into the stage, Gordon had catapulted himself into 7th place and by the end of the first half of today’s special he was lying second. He held on to second place for much of the second half of the stage until De Villiers put his Toyota between Roma and Gordon to take 2nd. Gordon had to settle for 3rd, 20 minutes and 12 seconds behind Nani.

The Spaniard moves back into first placein the general standings after his vicory in today’s special, with fellow Spaniard, Sainz, the overnight leader, having a bad day and losing just over an hour to Roma’s fastest time.

With vapour locks behind him, Gordon is getting stronger and stronger as the race progresses. The new car seems to be settling nicely into its role of giant killer and the team are upbeat about the remainder of the race. Having been kicked and nearly crushed by the Dakar, the team have fought back and the mood in the camp now is, whatever the Dakar has left to throw at them, “bring it on!”, they’re waiting.

Gordon now sits in 11th place based on the finishers but this may change as other racers finish the stage.

Baldwin is still going and we will report his progress when we know more. After the loss of his teammate from the race due to catastrophic fire yesterday, BJ is carrying all the honour of the EV Racing team now.